My Westbrook theory (rant)...

Let’s talk about Russell Westbrook.

Since being taken 4^th in the 2008 NBA Draft the 6 foot 3 guard from California has been busy. A 3 time all-star, World and Olympic gold medal winner, widely regarded as a top 3 athlete in the NBA, this year he finished 6^th in the league in scoring and 7^th in assists at 23.2 and 7.4 a game. All this earned him an 80 million dollar, 5 year deal with the Oklahoma City Thunder. OKC is on the path to a championship, losing to the eventual champs in each of the last 3 seasons, but getting a step closer every year; 1^st round to the Lakers in 2010, Conference Finals to Dallas in 2011, and the finals to Miami in 2012. According to this trend, the Thunder was poised to complete their ascent to the pinnacle of the NBA this year, or at the least give us a mouth watering finals rematch against Miami. Then something unusual happened, Russell got hurt. Not as you would expect on one of his kamikaze missions into the paint, but in a bizarre collision with Rockets rookie upstart Patrick Beverly who was going for a steal as Westbrook called a timeout. Not only did he miss the first game of his career in game 3 of the first round against Houston, he missed the rest of the playoffs. Without Westbrook, Kevin Durant carried the Thunder past a young Rockets squad, but couldn’t get past an excellent Memphis Grizzlies team in the 2^nd round. OKC’s fairytale rise to a championship will have to wait till next year, as will answers to ever more frequent questions on how much the Thunder could regret trading away super sub come superstar James Harden at the start of the year.

Will they win it all next year as currently constituted? Possibly, but I’m going to argue for a pretty major adjustment in OKC’s makeup: shifting Westbrook to shooting guard. This is not a revolutionary idea and has been tabled with gumption after each of OKC’s recent playoff “failures”. My argument is based on giving the Thunder a better chance to win one, and potentially multiple championships. This is not to say they cannot or will not win with RW at the point guard spot, as his career thus far has already demonstrated this is highly possible, but that they will be a better team with a better chance of a ring with him at the 2.

We’ll start with an overview of his strengths and weaknesses.

Strengths – The foundation of his game is athleticism. Speed, strength, quickness and hops make him a terror going to the rim in the half court and transition. Defenders have to respect the drive and he can punish them with his mid range jumper. He’s a more than adequate post up player. He gets to the line frequently. Effectively he’s a great scorer. Defensively his athleticism helps too, he’s a tough on the ball defender and great in the passing lanes leading to easy transition buckets, and he’s an excellent guard rebounder. To go with that athleticism is a ferocious competitiveness, which overall is a positive but contributes to some of his weaknesses as well. The positive side means he never takes plays off (effort wise) and provides constant energy on both sides of the floor. Together these mental and physical attributes combine a relentless scorer and highly disruptive defender in an (until recently) indestructible and explosive body.

Weaknesses – As is often the case his primary strengths double up as weaknesses. Scoring – the guy can score, but he’s often erratic and inefficient, taking bad shots at bad times way too often. Although his 3 point shot is improving, it’s still below average. Tied up in this shot selection is decision making, the presence and application of basketball IQ. One consistent flaw is pulling up for a quick shot in transition with teammates out of position to challenge for offensive boards, which gives the defense plays off, he then compounds the error by pressuring the opposing ball handler and overstretching his teams defense immediately in a possession. Often times it seems like he has one gear, or that the gear he’s in is way too fast for the scenario, which may involve slowing the tempo to protect a lead, clock management or simply feeding the hot hand. He’s not a bad passer, but he’s not a great one either, and even though he averages a bunch of assists, the stat is misleading in measuring his efficacy as a facilitator. His out of control play is often representative of his fluctuating temperament. He moans at refs, snaps at reporters and rants at coaching staff. Ultimately his lack of consistent composure on the floor often hurts his team.

My premise is this: his weaknesses are exactly the strengths required of a good point guard, while his strengths are exactly that of a scoring 2 guard (minus 3 point shooting, but I envision Russ as more of a Wade than Korver type 2). Conclusion: he’s a shooting guard, and should be played as one.

The point guard spot is arguably the most important on an NBA roster, they are the fulcrum of the team, an extension of the coach on the floor and therefore they bear a huge mental burden to ensure team execution of the offense. Furthermore, if the offense is struggling - which is more likely to occur against good teams in more important moments – the point guard has to be able to read the defense and adapt accordingly. Pure point guards of the past make guys around them better, if playing well is to do your job, and your job is to get guys easy buckets, then when you play well, by default, your team is better. Traditional point guards have this mindset, together with the basketball intelligence that gets wins. They more than most understand the elusive truth that winning is the result of a collective rather than individual effort. Of the 18 ex professional players coaching in the league today, 13 were point guards, which is indicative of the tactical feel for the game the position requires.

Not only does Westbrook not possess these attributes, but they are active weaknesses of his. Therefore, playing the point emphasizes these weaknesses. To make matters worse, the Thunder offence is overwhelmingly iso-oriented. Makes sense right? Westbrook and Durant are 2 of the best isolation scorers in the league, and Scott Brooks has created an offence in their image. It works well enough against bad defensive teams, but is liable to be exposed as one dimensional by good defenses given the opportunity to make adjustments over a 7 game series. Where do you go when your system can no longer generate high percentage looks if you’re a non traditional scoring point guard with a quick trigger? You take the low percentage look and hope for the best. Both Westbrooks limitations as a point guard and the limitations of the Thunder offence make it easier for opponents to expose his weaknesses.

It’s not just Westbrook, scoring point guards are common and highly sought in todays NBA, guys like Derrick Rose, Kyrie Irving and Steph Curry. But as has been pointed out (with help from an excellent barman analogy), in the last 30 years no point guard on a championship team has taken more than 19% of their teams shots. Westbrook in the regular season took 25% of his teams shots, Kyrie is at 21%, Rose at 21% (in 11/12 regular season), Curry is at 21%. Perhaps the catalyst for today’s tendencies towards ball dominant guard scoring is the great Allen Iverson who really set the bar at taking 35% (in 01/02) of his teams shots, now I’m not denying AI was a great scorer in his prime, but he is the blueprint for scoring point guards everywhere, and he never won a ring. Oh and the guys who took 19% of their teams shots - Magic Johnson and Isaiah Thomas, two of the greatest point guards and players ever, so they probably could justify the extra looks. Granted, there are limits in using the past to predict the future, is the absence of scoring point guards because of a fundamental floor in the concept? Or is it just that the game has evolved to favour perimeter scorers only recently? I’d say it’s 70/30 in favour of the former, and until a banner says otherwise, I’m using history to guide how I construct a championship team rather than putting my chips on a player transcending both history and tradition.

Besides the flaws in the concept of a scoring point guard, the argument is reinforced for the Thunder by the presence of Mr Kevin Durant. Irving, Rose and Curry they are the best offensive players on their respective teams – but this is not the case for Westbrook who takes more of his teams shots than any of those guys by a not insignificant 4%. It is incredible that Durant has won the scoring title 3 times without a pure point guard getting him easy points. It’s true that Westbrook creates looks for Durant indirectly on drive and kicks and the defensive attention he himself attracts, but there is no reason he can’t still do this off the ball on the opposite wing to Durant. This would give the Thunder a more balanced attack whilst making life easier for both players.

Westbrook is at 7.4 assists per game this year, 7^th best in the league, and I’m going to argue he’s not a great passer. Why? Because stats can be empty and misleading.

Here’s a comparison of stats indicating how a team scores, shoots and passes with PG’s on and off the floor, first up, here are the effects of Westbrooks 7.4 APG.

	ON COURT	OFF COURT	DIFFERENTIAL
Points per 100 poss.	115.6	109.6	+5.7
Effective FG%	53.1%	51.5%	+1.6
Assisted FG’s	55%	56%	-1

 

Here’s Steph Curry, at 6.9 APG,

	ON COURT	OFF COURT	DIFFERENTIAL
Points per 100 poss.	109.3	101.3	+8
Effective FG%	51.6%	47.3%	+4.3
Assisted FG’s	59%	55%	+4%

 

Steph’s cumulative differential of +16.3 dwarfs Westbrooks +6.3, despite his lower APG. Both scoring point guards, with noticeably different impacts on their teams collective performances.

As a yardstick for both here’s Chris Paul, the best PG in the league in my opinion, and a pass first PG at that, with a cumulative differential of +20.8

	ON COURT	OFF COURT	DIFFERENTIAL
Points per 100 poss.	116.7	104.8	+11.9
Effective FG%	54.1%	50.2%	+3.9
Assisted FG’s	63%	58%	+5%

 

So why are his assists reasonably high? Two reasons, 1) The Thunder is the 2nd best offensive team in the league with an offensive efficiency of 110.2 and 2) Ball dominant point guards overwhelmingly get dimes; Iverson 7.9, Rose 7.9, Steve Francis 7.0, Baron Davis 8.9, even Gilbert Arenas had 6.1 a game in his most prolific scoring year (05/06). Accordingly, I think it’s fair to doubt assists as a standalone indicator of a players ability to, and effect of, “Spread the Sugar” as the great Bob “Da Cooz” Cousy described it.

Decision making has been a constant criticism of Westbrook, especially in recent playoff runs where he has been benched or moved off the ball for important stretches. In the Western Conference Finals of 2011 against Dallas, Westbrook sat for the whole 4^th quarter as Scott Brooks went to Erik Maynor at the point after Westbrook made a series of poor decisions and out of control plays meaning the team failed to run the offense. The Thunder were a -10 in Westbrook’s 28 minutes, compared to a +18 in Maynor’s 19 minutes, and OKC won game 2 to level the series. There’s clearly something wrong with sitting a multiple all star in the biggest 12 minutes of the season because they were hurting your team, but it’s not a surprise, given Westbrooks strengths (scoring) and weaknesses (being a point guard), and how the two so blatantly conflict.

Moving on a year to the WCF in 2012 against the Spurs and another example of how in big moments and games, Westbrook is better off without the offensive load of scoring and running the team. This time he wasn’t benched but relieved of his primary ball handling duties, which were given to James Harden. The story of the series so far was this; in games 1 and 2 the Spurs had played arguably the best team basketball seen for decades and jumped out to a 2-0 series lead with the series heading to OKC. In game 3 defensive specialist Thabo Sefolosha was assigned to slow down Spurs point guard Tony Parker, which he did brilliantly and without their enigmatic point guard, the Spurs offense broke down, and OKC won game 3. In game 4 the Sefolosha adjustment works again, but the game is tight in the 4^th, when Harden starts running the offense – which consisted of a single devastating play. Harden has the ball on the left wing, waits for Durant to come up from a downpick from Westbrook on the weak side, and gives KD the ball. It was that simple. KD scored 16 consequetive points in 6 minutes off options from that one magical play. Harden had 6 assists to Durant. OKC wins the game and goes on to win the series.

These two episodes are extreme versions of a fairly regular problem Coach Scott Brooks faces, one that he prefers to address with short term Erik Maynor and James Harden shaped band aids rather than a once and for all solution. The issue resurfaced in the Finals against the formidable Miami Heat, after game 2 Westbrook took heavy criticism of his point guard play by the greatest point guard of all time – Magic Johnson. In game 3 Westbrook was benched midway through the 3^rd for a series of bad shots and turnovers. Testament to his competitive edge he responded to subpar performances and criticism with an historic and notably efficient 20 of 32 shooting 43 point outburst in game 5. However with the Thunder down three with 17.3 seconds left, Udonis Haslem and James Harden lined up for a jump ball. If the Heat retained possession, they would have five seconds left on the shot clock. Westbrook didn’t recognize this, and when Mario Chalmers tracked down the tip, Westbrook made the mistake of intentionally fouling him. OKC lost the game and the series, his game 4 performance perfectly epitomized Westbrook the player - potentially sensational scorer, regularly reckless decision maker. So logically, put him in positions to score, and take him out of positions where he has to make decisions.

On the assumption that Westbrook is properly classified as a shooting guard, General Manager Sam Presti and the Thunders already debatable decision to trade James Harden becomes more contentious. After Hardens great year in Houston, it could be argued Sam Presti moved the wrong player. Harden may not be as athletic as Westbrook but is a more versatile offensive threat as a better 3 point shooter and passer, and thus a better complement to KD. After Westbrooks injury in the playoffs this year, Serge Ibaka was expected to take on more of an offensive load, but he couldn’t do it, lending weight to the popular theory that it should have been Ibaka that was moved. But that’s an argument for another day.

This years playoffs were interesting in a number of ways though. Most people will point solely to the absence of Westbrook for the Thunders struggles after he went down in game 3, and they definitely missed him, but his absence wasn’t the whole story. They struggled initially in the Houston series as Durant played a lot of point forward, and Westbrooks replacement sophomore Reggie Jackson struggled to define his role under immense pressure to fill Westbrooks shoes. After a couple of close Houston wins however, the Thunder won in 6. Let’s not forget though that Houston was right there and almost stole game 2 on the road, when Russell was playing, losing a nail biter by 3 points, and so were more of a threat with Westbrook on or off the floor than most people give them credit for. In the second round the Thunder lost in 5, but this belies how close this series was – with the 5 games being decided by 2, 6, 6, 6 and 4 with the Thunder losing the game on the inside rather than on the perimeter, Perkins offered no offensive threat and as already mentioned Ibaka struggled against the Grizzly big man tandem of Gasol and Randolph. Reggie Jackson though actually had a solid postseason with per game averages of 14 points, 3.6 assists, and 5 boards on 48% shooting, notably with 2.1 turnovers per 36 minutes to Westbrooks 4.2. Quite impressive considering the first 4 games were his first real taste of the playoffs in turbulent circumstances as the Thunder offense was in flux after losing Westbrook, and the next 5 games were against the best defense in the league.

Phil Jackson has always said that the game reveals the player as it reveals the coach. In time it will reveal Russell Westbrook, his success or failure as a point guard, the strategy of coach Scott Brooks, the decisions of GM Sam Presti, the legacy of running mate Kevin Durant and ultimately the Championship pedigree of the Oklahoma City Thunder.

Will they win it all next year, or any year, as currently constituted? Possibly.

Will they win it all with Russell at the 2? Probably.